


a ringing inside my head

by sunkissedhao



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mentions of Suicide Attempt, Minor Descriptions of Gore, apocalypse au, just two kiddos having a rly rough time, nothing too bad tho i dont think??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 22:42:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15375000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunkissedhao/pseuds/sunkissedhao
Summary: For as long as they’ve known each other, Junhui can only remember seeing Minghao afraid, truly and openly, only a handful of times.





	a ringing inside my head

Junhui remembers little to nothing about how it happened. The harder he racks his brain, the more all he recalls is the way Minghao screamed — feral and loud. _Loud_. Junhui remembers that. _Too loud, too loud_ , as he whipped his head back at the sound, his mouth open to admonish the sound. He remembers the blood that stained Minghao’s shirt. Red, angry, _fresh_.

There’s nothing after that. Just the weight of Minghao’s body pressed against his own as they walk, a feeling of something sticky and wet soaking the fabric of his shirt from where their hips meet. It feels like they’ve been walking forever, the only indication of time passing was the increasing weight of Minghao’s body in his arms.

There’s no noise in Junhui’s head apart from the pounding of his own blood rushing past his ears. There’s no feeling in his body apart from where Minghao leans against him. His feet carry the both of them although without any guidance and it’s a miracle, really. It’s a miracle that Junhui didn’t drop them both, crumple to the ground. Cover his head with his hands and wait for this nightmare to end and for his consciousness to come back to him. Minghao groans next to him, quiet, _quiet_ , and Junhui wonders if he'll really ever wake up from this hell.

He doesn’t remember setting Minghao down to sit with his back against the cement wall of the empty parking garage, but suddenly Junhui is kneeling by his side, bag resting somewhere to his left. His hand shakes as he grabs at the hem of Minghao’s shirt, slowly pulling it back despite the groans of protest.

It’s ugly. Junhui can’t tell where the bite even _is_ and he can’t tell how well he’s covering up the sense of panic he feels start to travel through his bloodstream, crawling across every inch of his skin, slow and deliberate.

“That... that bad?” Minghao asks, causing a gush of near-black blood to ooze from mangled mess of his lower torso. Junhui drops the shirt fabric back onto the wound, eyes still seeing the damage beyond even as the already-soaked fabric settles back in place. He can’t meet Minghao’s eyes.

He starts to reach for the bag he set down earlier. His hands are still shaking and the blood makes them slick. He drops the water bottle twice before managing to pull it out. Minghao’s hand, cold and bony, finds Junhui’s wrist.

“Stop.” Junhui twists the cap off, shaking Minghao’s hand off, and using his other hand to pull back his blood-soaked shirt again.

“I have to clean it,” Junhui says, pausing, hand poised to pour the water over the wound, and he automatically looks up to Minghao’s for approval, for him to tell Junhui he was doing the right thing.

Minghao’s eyes died first. Junhui can’t see anything there no matter how hard he looks and looks and looks, but there’s no spark of fondness, no warmth of reassurance, not even a trace of pain or sadness or annoyance.

“Do you think c...cleaning it will help?”

At least his voice still betrayed some emotion, but Junhui hears the pain that underlies his sarcastic tone more than anything. Junhui’s grip on the bottle falters, causing some to splash out and Minghao sucks in breath as it hits his torso.

“What do I do?” Junhui asks, desperate. They didn’t have any alcohol like they did when Minghao cleaned the gun wound Junhui got last year when they accidentally ran into a group of territory-possessive roamers, but he remembers Minghao telling him water would work as a substitute if it had to. They had to clean it with _something_ or else it was going to getting infected and—

“Junhui.” His eyes refocus on Minghao’s empty ones. “It’s over. Just... stop.”

_Stop._

Junhui remembers, too many times to count, Minghao yelling the opposite at him. The summer they almost starved to death and Junhui felt too weak, too cold to even open his eyes every morning after, somehow, waking up. Running, barefoot and bleeding, through the streets of an abandoned city, hoards biting at their heels and popping out from every alley and street corner. And after Fengjun died... when Minghao had found him crying over the too small corpse, a shard of shattered glass hovering with uncertainty over the skin of his left wrist.

“Stop?” Junhui echoes. “But... I don’t—”

“You have to leave,” Minghao cuts him off, leaning forward as best he can to push at Junhui’s arms and chest. The force isn’t anywhere near enough to move Junhui and he stays kneeling, numb and not understanding, as Minghao speaks. “There’s no t... time for this. Just go.”

Minghao falls back against the cement wall, spent, glassy eyes falling onto Junhui. His chest heaves from the effort or from the unrelated effort of continuing to breathe, words coming out tightly.

“I said _go_.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Junhui says, the words coming almost instinctively.

“Yes... you are.”

“No,” Junhui repeats, stomach twisting funnily at the way Minghao’s head rolls away from him, eyes slipping closed. “No, it’s fine, just let me clean the wound, Hao, it’s fine, we—”

“ _Leave._ ”

“I’m not going without you!”

“ _I’m dead, Junhui!_ ” Minghao’s voice ricochets off the ceiling and floors — loud — and bounces throughout the empty space — _too loud, too loud_. He sucks in a breath, the air hissing out between clenched teeth. “Don’t you see that? Just... _go_.”

Junhui shakes his head, blinking at pricking sensation coming from the backs of his eyelids. “No, _no_ , I’m not leaving you like this.”

Minghao fixes Junhui with a look, something finally wavering in his eyes, and takes a shuddering breath.

“Then kill me.”

It’s said quieter than his shout before, but it leaves Junhui’s ears ringing all the same. He feels bile rise in the back of his throat, but when he opens his mouth, nothing comes out. That’s when he finally sees it in Minghao’s eyes, hears it in the wavering of his voice when he speaks next.

For as long as they’ve known each other, Junhui can only remember seeing Minghao afraid, truly and openly, only a handful of times. He’d almost forgot how his eyes looked when he was.

“ _Please,_ ” Minghao says, strained, and Junhui chokes back a sudden sob. “Don’t... don’t let me become one of them.”

All Junhui can do it bow his head, shaking it wordlessly, squeezing his eyes shut as if that would stop the tears from flowing. He registers Minghao shifting in front of him, but he doesn’t move until he feels the piece of cool metal being nudged into his hands. Blinking back tears, Junhui stares down at the gun Minghao offers him, hands opening and closing around it reflexively. Another sob racks his body as Minghao lets go, the full weight of the gun resting in his hands alone.

“I-I can’t,” he says, shaking his head helplessly. “Minghao, I can’t kill you.”

“Yes you can.” Junhui’s head lifts, drawn by the sound of Minghao’s voice, as always. “Junhui... you can do it. I trust you.”

There’s a solemness and unwavering surety in his tone that causes a wave of fresh tears to stream down Junhui’s cheeks, curving over the skin of his jaw. They fall onto the fabric of Minghao’s shirt, disappearing into the pool of red.

Junhui doesn’t remember standing up, but suddenly he can feel his legs wobbling dangerously beneath him. The gun in his hand carries the weight of his world as he starts to raise it, stopping before he even gets in the vicinity of Minghao’s body.

He feels Minghao’s hands, colder and bonier than they were a few minutes before, come to rest over his, raising the gun up to rest against the edge of his forehead. Junhui can’t see the expression on his face from this angle, just the crown of his head and the growing pool of red that soaks his shirt, but his hands are steady on Junhui’s and the next breath Junhui takes is deeper, less of a shudder than the last, and on and on until Junhui thinks his own hands aren’t shaking so badly anymore. Still, his finger refuses to move from where it’s resting along the frame.

“M-Minghao, I...”

_I can’t._

_I need you._

_I’m sorry._

_I love you._

But there’s a lump the size of a boulder blocking his throat and nothing escapes his lips apart from a shaky exhale of air. His pointer finger twitches as it inches towards the trigger, like some magnetic force is trying to keep it from reaching it's destination until the skin of his fingertip touches the cool metal and—

_Too loud._


End file.
